5 Best Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones Under $100

Featured Product

9.8

COWIN E8 Bluetooth Noise-Canceling Headphones

These modern and affordable headphones are perfect for blocking out the world around you while enjoying music in a clear and crisp manner. These headphones pack a powerful punch while keeping money in your wallet! Keep an eye for sales with these headphones, they're frequently on sale!

What We Liked

The E8 offer some amazing state-of-the-art features that consumers want. active noise-canceling, bluetooth, wireless and wired, fast shipping, high-quality materials used in the design of the product, comfortable to wear, fast charging, and large battery.

What We Didn't Like

There should be more color choices.

Now is the best time to pick up a new pair of noise-canceling headphones, allowing you to focus on the music and forgetting about the world around you. If you’re just entering the marketing with a shoe-string budget, this article is dedicated to you.

Below, we break down some of the best performing, best bang-for-your-buck, and be quality noise-canceling headphones you can get for $100 or less. This task wasn’t easy and noise-canceling headphones can get quite expensive with the new features they’re offering.

5 Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones Under $100

For those who are looking for headphone recommendations, we’ve got you covered. We spent a considerable amount of time researching the noise-canceling market and now are excited to showcase our product recommendations! Here are our top five recommended headphones for those interested in noise-canceling functionality:

Active Noise-Cancelling Headphones (Under 100 Dollars) Shopping Guide

Noise cancelling headphones don’t need to be limited to just using when on the plane, although this is one of the greatest uses for the noise canceling headphone as it shuts out that almost deafening roar of an airplane’s engines perhaps allowing you a peaceful sleep or to help you forget you are even on a plane. They are also great for use whenever you need to zone out any ambient noise that might be of a distraction, allowing you to potentially work anywhere in peace and quiet, or simply enjoy what you are listening to without any external distractions.

There are many questions one would have when considering shopping for noise canceling headphones, and this article will help you understand the basics of the technology so that you can make an educated choice on what style and at what cost you would like to pay for your pair. We will cover the differences between noise canceling and noise isolation headphones, tell you what to look for when shopping for your pair and give you a few great options for first time users or professionals alike.

What is the difference?

You may become a bit confused when looking for noise-canceling headphones as a huge array of styles and price ranges will appear, especially when some are marketed as noise isolating, or passive noise-canceling, rather than simply noise-canceling headphones. Same difference right? Nope! Do not think that when you have found a great bargain for a pair of passive noise canceling headphones that you will be paying for the same technology as a pair of noise-canceling headphones if just a little less quality.

Noise isolating headphones block that external noise only through physical means. The aim is to create the strongest seal around your ears as headphones or your ear canal as earbuds whilst still being comfortable. This greatly reduces any external noise that you can hear. Earbuds block out other noises simply by being a snug fit and ensures the only thing you can really hear, is your music. Noise isolating, over the ear headphones, will have thick ear cups that aim to reduce and block out as many external noises as possible.

Noise canceling headphones on the other hand, actually use a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology that actively seeks out and cancel sound waves from ambient, external noises. This means that any noise canceling or active noise cancellation headphones contains an internal microphone and an audio processor that when an external sound is recognized, plays an opposite sound that effectively cancels it out. This is otherwise known as destructive interference.

This technology is not entirely new and is used frequently in the workforce or during hunting game where workers or hunters need to be able to talk and communicate with one another yet deaden any sound that comes in at a certain decibel. This protects their ears. The technology used in the noise cancellation headphones that we use for pleasure or office work takes from this, but rather can block out ambient noise, such as people talking, the hum of an airplane engine or air conditioning units yet does not do so well with sharp noises, such as a jackhammer, a gun firing, the fire alarm going off or the slam of a door.

Noise cancellation headphones have one up on noise isolating headphones because you can noise is greatly reduced even if you do not play any music using a high-quality noise canceling headphone. A definite positive of these types of headphones, and with noise isolating headphones as well, is that you can listen to your music at a lower volume, as you do not need attempt to block out any external sounds that may be coming through. You do, however, if walking down the street, for instance, need to be extra aware of your surroundings, as you have no audible notice of dangers such as cars backing out of driveways or bicycles approaching you from behind.

What to look for when shopping for noise canceling headphones

With such an array of choices available, we have compiled a small list of ideas to have in your head as you start to look around.

Decide on the style before you start.

You have in-ear or earbuds, ear pads or supra-aural headphones and full-sized headphones or circum-aural headphones to choose from before looking at the different brands, quality, and associated costs. The form is quite important as full-sized headphones and earbuds can provide quite a bit of passive noise canceling as well, if they fit nicely in or around your ear.

Try before you buy (if you can)

Speaking of fitting nicely on your ears, it is a great idea to try them on before you buy them. This way you can see if over the ear headphones are comfortable on your head, especially if you wear glasses, or in earbuds fit snugly. Try them out as well, but playing some music with them for a while, so that you can experience for yourself how they work for you.

High quality comes at a high price

This may seem obvious, but expect to pay a couple of hundred dollars for a good quality pair of noise-canceling headphones. This is because these headphones have their own internal processor with a microphone as well as great quality pads, cables, and speakers. You can skimp on one or the other and still expect to have yourself a great pair of headphones, but as of yet, there are no great bargains to be had in the high-end noise-canceling headphone market.

Check the warranty

As with any pair of headphones, things can go wrong and since there is a processor as well inside a pair of noise-canceling headphones, electronics can fail. Make sure you have at least a year warranty and consider an extended warranty if you are hoping for your pair to last you several years. Check out independent reviews from customers to get an idea of how your preferred brand stands the test of time.

Don’t anticipate wonders

They do a great job of reducing ambient noise and you will certainly notice a difference from an everyday pair of headphones when working in the office trying to eliminate that constant bubble of chatter or whilst traveling by air, but you will still experience high pitched sounds or sudden loud noises that the processor couldn’t react to.